


Stop

by dreamoverdrive



Category: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Love, Romance, reunited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-11 21:19:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5642317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamoverdrive/pseuds/dreamoverdrive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Padmé finds Anakin again in the Force and struggles to come to terms with all that has come to pass since they were last together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stop

 She found him at the fringe.

It wasn’t really finding, because she hadn’t been searching (but really, she had). He sat hunched over, head braced between his knees, broad shoulders shaking. His hair was long again, she noted distantly. She remembered how she used to skim her fingers through it, down the skin of his neck, over the taut skin of his jaw. She remembered how his flesh was charred, burnt, blackened beyond recognition—

_It seems in your rage, you killed her._

“Anakin,” she whispered. It felt strange to her, or it should have felt strange. She had been watching them say his new name for so long, watching her own children say his new name. Like they had never known their father was anything different than the hulking, rattling, killing suit of black and chrome. What scared her was how easily his name came out of her mouth now, like it had never really left her.

And yet he had left her.

His head jolted up and his eyes flashed to her face. The last time she had seen his eyes they had been lit with the garish red light of the lava, shining yellow out of wan and sweaty skin with a maniacal gleam: _don’t you turn against me, too._  

“Padmé.” His voice was a soft, desperate croak. He scrabbled, palms working to push himself up and off the ground, taking a step towards her—

“Stop.”

He stopped. Her breath rattled in her throat but she had spoken clearly. She supposed that she had finally gotten used to staying it. She had said it when they first met again in her Senate chambers, when he had stared down into her eyes with a strange and foreign mix of excitement, hunger, and dare she even begin to imagine it—love. She had said it on Naboo when he told her she was inside of him, tearing him apart, driving him to madness, and yet now, she knew that returning his affection hadn’t stopped his descent. She had merely slowed it. She wondered how she couldn’t see it when he stood in the cool light of her chambers with the fountain gurgling and the yellow glow of the city slanting over the slopes and hollows of his face, and his hand resting on the new swell of her stomach: _I can’t lose you, Padmé._

She wondered if he had heard her screaming _stop_. When she first found herself here, and staring down at the stranger, her husband, her Ani. She had screamed and screamed, pounding and tearing at the invisible ties that kept her from fully being there from, fully communicating with him. She’d screamed herself bloody and hoarse, _I’m here! Stop! Stop!_

 But he didn’t.

 Not when she was there. Not when she was clutching, screaming, begging, _not my daughter, please, not my son. Stop, please, please stop._

She wondered when she had started screaming _my children_ instead of _our children._

“Padmé.”

 She blinked and she was back, looking at him now. She realized that if she wanted, she could probably reach out and touch him. All the years she had spent watching, and now he was here, tangible. And all she could do was stare.

 “Padmé.” His voice cracked sharply, echoing around them. Tears had begun to leak out of the corners of his eyes, streaming down his face. She had always thought it was good when he cried, that it was good when he finally showed release. But he hadn’t released her, not until she was staring at him in his invisible grip several feet off the ground, wishing that he had the strength to let her go before it had all happened.

 “Padmé, I’m sorry.”

 His voice was the deep, emphatic tone it had been before the suit. She shook at the sound of it, hating the exultation in her chest and the trembling in her hands. She had let him go, she had let her husband go—

 “Padmé, I don’t know what I’ve done.” He started to crumple, face overwrought with emotion and powerful shoulders caving back in. He sank to his knees, trembling the way her hands were, and suddenly she was back on Tattoine and he was telling her that he had _slaughtered them like animals_ but he was crying and shaking, and this, _this_ is Ani, she thought. He had gone and done something, something so, so bad that she should hate him. But when he looked up at her, his eyes were raw and aching, screaming what he couldn’t put into words, screaming apologies for his wake of death and his pyre of smoke and twice-scorched flesh—

 And then her hand was fitted around the curve of his cheek, settling in where it had fit time and time again. His eyes watched her, wide and wary and filled with an absolute and all-consuming need. She found herself here where she had stood and sat so many times before to tell him it would be alright, that they would be alright. But they hadn’t been, they hadn’t ended alright. She had been here, watching him torture, and murder, and take.

 So what could she say now, when there wasn’t a future anymore? When there was no light side, no dark side, no senate, no code? What was there to make alright in this place, where they couldn’t move forward or backward?

 Suddenly she found herself leaning into him, listening to his breath hitch. The skin of his neck was warm against her forehead, the crook of his shoulder secure and solid beneath her temple.

 She breathed in.

 She breathed out.

 “You’re here,” she whispered.

His hesitant hand rose, the hand that he had lost before their marriage, that she had held steel in place of during their vows. Now it was warm, human, and whole at the top of her head, gentle and hesitant to move too far or too quickly.

 “I’m here,” he whispered in agreement.

 And she thought for right now, in this segment of eternity, that was enough.


End file.
